A criminal law expert has praised reports Australian Attorney-General Christian Porter has signed off on an investigation into potentially raising the Minimum Age of Criminal Responsibility (MACR) from 10 to 16 as a "positive" step.
On Monday, reported the attorney general and his state colleagues had signed off on an investigation into looking at raising the age of criminal responsibility in Australia.
Australian law allows children as young as 10 to be charged with a criminal offence, falling below the average MACR worldwide of 12.1 years, according to .
Around 600 children under 14 are locked up in Australian youth cells every year.
Professor Arlie Loughnan, a criminal law professor from the University of Sydney, told SBS News she believed the investigation into raising the MACR was a good step.
Minimum age of criminal responsibility around the world. (SBS News) Source: SBS News
“We have to remember, Australia has an age of criminal responsibility that is low for world standards - much lower than countries in the Nordic region, for example, and elsewhere. That has meant we can see the impact of the criminal justice system on people as young as 10 in Australia," she told SBS News.
“It was one of the recommendations in the royal commission in the Northern Territory that the age of criminal responsibility is raised there.
“What we have to remember is that the earlier young people get involved in criminal justice, the worse the consequences are. In other words, the more likely they are to be involved on a repeat bases."
Scandinavian countries including Norway, Sweden and Finland have gone above the UN stance on children’s responsibility with the MACR set at 15.
Professor Loughnan, who is also the co-director of the Institute of Criminology at the University of Sydney, said that compared to Australia's system, Nordic countries focus on "rehabilitation" rather than "punishment".
“The age of criminal responsibility is one component of a larger system. So when the other parts of the system are set up to help prevent a person, who might have begun a process of offending, then the age of criminal responsibility works even better," she said.
“We know Nordic countries are ‘famous’ for low crime rates and for criminal justice processes that focus on rehabilitation. The system is orientated towards treatment and rehabilitation rather than say punishment and condemnation, which is the system we have here."
'What's being done'
Professor Jeremy Gans, from the Melbourne Law School, said there is something "artificial about any age" of MACR.
"The issue isn't, what the minimum age of criminal responsibility is, it's how you treat people. The question is what is being done with people at that lower end," he told SBS News.
"Are they being treated harshly or is criminal punishment being reserved for situations where there is absolutely no other option?"
He cited the example of James Bulger that triggered a debate around the world about the MACR.
In 1993, CCTV images of a two-year-old boy being taken by the hand and led away from a UK shopping centre by two older children shocked the world.
It was the last recorded sighting of James Bulger. He was forced to walk four kilometres before the pair beat him to death and left his body on a railway line.
At the time, children aged as young as 10 could be held responsible for a crime in England so the two boys stood trial in an adult court. The Minimum Age of Criminal Responsibility hasn’t changed in England or Wales since.
The boys - who cannot be named - were sentenced to eight years, the maximum for a juvenile receiving life imprisonment.
They remain some of the youngest convicted murderers in modern British history.
"The terrible example is the two kids who killed the two-year-old James Bulger in England. They were a couple of (months) over their 10th birthday," he said.
Minimum age of criminal responsibility around the world. Source: SBS
"If they had been under 10 they could not have been prosecuted. But what would you do with them? By the same token, why would you suddenly do something different just because they are a couple of weeks older, that can't make a difference.
"So I think there is something artificial about any age...the real question is what should we be doing with people at different ages."
SBS News contacted the Department of the Attorney General for comment.
